TALKING RANGERS Murty looks on the bright side after Old Firm gloom
IN the aftermath of an Old Firm defeat, it can be hard to search for solace when one negative overshadows any positives.
When the result doesn’t go for you, everything else can be lost amid the doom and gloom.
The outcome was all that mattered for Graeme Murty on Sunday but as his focus shifts from the last game to the next one, so do his attentions in the grand scheme of things.
There is no doubt it was an opportunity missed for Rangers at Ibrox as Celtic twice came from behind and then, with 10 men, emerged victorious to stretch their lead at the top of the Premiership table.
For Murty and his players, it was tough to take. It will be for some time, but the Light Blues boss believes there could be silver linings in the dark clouds.
Murty said: “I don’t think it is my first significant defeat. We have had significant ones for different reasons.
“It is my first defeat against Celtic and my first defeat where people have walked into the game thinking ‘we are going to win it’.
“Let’s not forget, before my first game against Celtic we were touted as the worst Rangers team ever and we were going to get beaten 8-0.
“So we have come a distance and we are closer to them than we were but the disappointment will come from that sense of having an opportunity and letting it go, letting it slip out of our grasps.
“That is the ultimate disappointment. What we have to do is make sure we take the positives from the game and look forward to Kilmarnock and push up the league and identify the things that we did well to go and exploit them in the semi-final.
“I think for a first Old Firm experience for some of our players, it was a positive learning experience.
“I will be better for this experience, I think the players will be better for this experience.
“I do have to say, I have never experienced an atmosphere like it in my life.
“I have been to Parkhead, I have played in front of 80,000 at Old Trafford, I was not prepared for the wall of sound that hit me when we scored our first goal. I was not prepared for it.
“I have got nothing to equate it to and as a learning experience as a young manager, and as hard as it is and as bitter as it is right now, I will be far, far better for it.
“I wish it hadn’t happened, I wish we had won, but I will be far better prepared and able to deal with things like that in the future because of it.”
The narrative around Rangers since Sunday has had a far more downbeat feel about it than the one in the build-up to the third Old Firm showdown of the campaign.
Murty’s side went into the Celtic clash in fine form and high spirits but must now pick themselves up again and ensure there is no lingering hangover in the coming weeks.
The late miss from Alfredo Morelos was undoubtedly a key moment but there were many over the 90 minutes that ultimately cost Rangers the chance of victory.
Murty said: “People feel free to shoot me down if you want. I was really down after the game, really down on us, because we had let that opportunity slip.
“I was really down on our tempo, our passing of the ball, and the goals that we conceded.
“Since watching the game back and looking at it, there is lots to be up about and lots I thought we could enhance and get better at.
“But for the width of a goal post, I am sitting here with a smile on my face.
“But we know that at that level, playing against people of that quality, we can’t afford to give them easy opportunities like we did.
“So we have shot ourselves in the foot there and made it difficult for ourselves but I still think we did more than enough to get a draw.
“Having watched it back, I think if we had got a draw Celtic would have walked out happy.”
First-half goals from Josh Windass and Daniel Candeias twice gave Rangers platforms upon which to build but it was Celtic who struck the final and most decisive blow.
Tom Rogic and Moussa Dembele ensured they were level at the break before Odsonne Edouard netted the fifth goal of an end-to-end encounter.
The red card to Jozo Simunovic gave Rangers a numerical advantage but it wasn’t one that they could make the most of in the end as the game, and the points, slipped away.
Murty told RangersTV: “I think it is basics and fundamentals of defending, getting yourself in between the ball and the goal, not allowing people to have a run on you.
“It is all things that are taught from year dot until professional that, at the very highest level, you need to be immaculate at, and we weren’t.
“But also I do think that when they went down to 10 men they upped their intensity levels 10 per cent and I think, unintentionally and subconsciously, we possibly came down a little bit.
“Rather than us ramping up 10 or 15 per cent in terms of our tempo and our aggression to penetrate, we kind of went down a little bit and that allowed them to get set, to get a shape to be difficult to break down and then we didn’t move the ball quickly enough.
“They are a well-drilled, well-organised team with good players in it and we were walking off the pitch, having had numerous opportunities but not being able to take them, and they took theirs.”